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Building Communities of Practice for Competitive Advantage:

The Satyam Learning Center Experience

 

by Roshan Joseph

 

Not only do organizations learn by developing and storing their competencies in groups of practitioners; they react to and create change primarily through communities of practice- absorbing new members, colliding with other communities, dealing with stimuli from outside. Each community of practice is a focus of learning and competence for the corporation. In today's knowledge intensive organizations, much of the work of the corporation is accomplished or thwarted through the interaction and overlap of distinct communities of practice. This paper discusses the experience of building Technology Focus Groups– Organizationally sponsored Communities of Practice at the Satyam Learning Center, aimed for delivering and facilitating world class training as and when associates need them. 

To stay competitive, organizations have to effectively deploy their resources. Chances are many a company's intellectual assets are seriously under-utilized, which means costs are higher than necessary, productivity is lower and competitive edge isn't as sharp as it should be. Collaboration, content, training - along with appropriate knowledge management practices-can help change all that and extract as much value as possible from an organization's intellectual capital. Managing knowledge processes well requires technologies that enable people to gravitate into communities of interest and expertise where their ability to share ideas and insights can spawn new knowledge and refine existing knowledge. This paper gives a brief description of Communities of Practice, their types, mission/outcomes, importance to organizations and describes the the experience of building Technology Focus Groups– Organizationally sponsored Communities of Practice at the Satyam Learning Center.

Communities of practice are everywhere. We all belong to a number of them–at work, at school, at home, in our hobbies. Some have a name, some don't. We are core members of some and we belong to others more peripherally. Members of a community are informally bound by what they do together–from engaging in lunch time discussions to solving difficult problems–and by what they have learned through their mutual engagement in these activities.   

Communities support improvement. "Communities are where members share their ideas, their tacit and explicit knowledge. They start out as very informal groups, where members share a common interest they wish to collaborate on. At a later stage they may evolve into more formal groups, a community of practice, where now it's more than just a common interest, but a group where the members have created thoughtware around their interest. Communities may start out as a place where our members share, but can end up meeting specific business objectives and generating new business. That's the intent, to go beyond aspirations as simple as 'stimulate cooperation' to include 'generate new business' as well."  

Communities are groups that form to share what they know, and to learn from one another regarding some aspects of work.

A community of practice defines itself along three dimensions:

• What it is about – its joint enterprise as understood and continually renegotiated by its members
• How it functions - mutual engagement that bind members together into a social entity
• What capability it has produced – the shared repertoire of communal resources (routines, sensibilities, artifacts, vocabulary, styles, etc.) that members have developed over time.

Communities of practice develop around things that matter to people. As a result, their practices reflect the members' own understanding of what is important. Outside constraints or directives can influence this understanding, but even then, members develop practices that are their own response to these external influences. Communities of practice move through various stages of development characterized by different levels of interaction among the members and different kinds of activities.

There are two types of Communities of Practice:

Self- Organizing CoPs- are self- governing as well. They pursue the shared interests of the group’s members. These CoPs add value to a company by sharing lessons learned, acting as distribution points for best and emerging practices, providing forums in which issues and problems can be raised and resolved and, in general, by learning from each other. Owing to their voluntary, informal nature, self- organizing CoPs are fragile yet extremely resilient. They are fragile in that attempts to manage or control them can result in the group members disbanding or going "underground" instead of sharing their expertise and knowledge more broadly. They are extremely resilient in that member’s come and go as interests and issues shift and evolve. Over time, then, they adapt. They can even evolve into a formal or sponsored CoP. Or, they might disband if enough of the members decide they are no longer deriving any benefit from their membership.

Sponsored CoPs  are initiated, chartered, and supported by management. Sponsored CoPs are expected to produce measurable results that benefit the company. They get needed resources and they have more formal roles and responsibilities. Even so, they are much more self- governing and wide- ranging than the typical cross- functional project teams.

A CoP (Sponsored or Self- Organizing) might be established to focus on almost any area of interest to the employees or the management of a company.  

The mission and outcomes of CoP depend upon the issue, process, or practice area around which it is organized and upon which it is focused. Mission and Outcomes usually encompass:

• stimulating interaction
• fostering learning
• creating new knowledge and
• identifying and sharing best practices.

Communities of practice are important to the functioning of any organization, but they become crucial to those that recognize knowledge as a key asset. From this perspective, an effective organization comprises a constellation of interconnected communities of practice, each dealing with specific aspects of the company's competency–from the peculiarities of a long-standing client, to esoteric technical inventions. Knowledge is created, shared, organized, revised, and passed on within and among these communities. In a deep sense, it is by these communities that knowledge is "owned" in practice.

Communities of practice fulfill a number of functions with respect to the creation, accumulation, and diffusion of knowledge in an organization:

• They are nodes for the exchange and interpretation of information. Because members have a shared understanding, they know what is relevant to communicate and how to present information in useful ways. As a consequence, a community of practice that spreads throughout an organization is an ideal channel for moving information, such as best practices, tips, or feedback, across organizational boundaries.

• They can retain knowledge in "living" ways, unlike a database or a manual. Even when they routinize certain tasks and processes, they can do so in a manner that responds to local circumstances and thus is useful to practitioners. Communities of practice preserve the tacit aspects of knowledge that formal systems cannot capture. For this reason, they are ideal for initiating newcomers into a practice.

• They can steward competencies to keep the organization at the cutting edge. Members of these groups discuss novel ideas, work together on problems, and keep up with developments inside and outside a firm. When a community commits to being on the forefront of a field, members distribute responsibility for keeping up with or pushing new developments. This collaborative inquiry makes membership valuable, because people invest their professional identities in being part of a dynamic, forward-looking community.

• They provide homes for identities. They are not as temporary as teams, and unlike business units, they are organized around what matters to their members. Identity is important because, in a sea of information, it helps us sort out what we pay attention to, what we participate in, and what we stay away from. Having a sense of identity is a crucial aspect of learning in organizations.

Communities of practice structure an organization's learning potential in two ways: through the knowledge they develop at their core and through interactions at their boundaries.  

Proceed for the Satyam Learning Centre Experience..............

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